


While the Cat's Away

by devilinthedetails



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Authority, Beginnings, Discipline, Gen, Humor, Midwinter, Mischief, arrival, curfew, introductions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-07-03 02:44:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15809718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Lord Padraig arrives in the pages' wing and ruins the prevailing spirt of Midwinter mayhem.





	While the Cat's Away

**Author's Note:**

> Details of Lord Padraig's life are borrowed from the Spy Guide. I'm so glad Tammy told us more about the training master after Wyldon. I also might have taken slight creative license with Liam's age.

While the Cat’s Away

“Lord Padraig.” Sir Gareth of Naxen, Prime Minister of Tortall, stepped forward to greet Padraig in the Royal Palace’s main entrance hall after Padraig and his soldiers had left their mounts in the care of the hostlers. He had banished his guards to the kitchens to enjoy what food, drink, gossip, and company were available in the middle of this long, cold winter’s night. With the candles flickering dimly in their sconces, Padraig hadn’t expected to be welcomed by anyone at this late hour. He had indeed envisioned retreating to the silence of the quarters that awaited him in the pages’ wing—this drive for solitude after a difficult journey had been what spurred him to urge his men onward to the palace that night, reminding them sternly that the longer they pressed on, the sooner they would reach the warm shelter of the palace—but he hadn’t factored Sir Gareth’s resolve to be present for every significant governmental occurrence into the equation. If the shadows lurking in splotches under the Prime Minister’s mud brown eyes were any indication, the old chestnut about Naxens burning both ends of the candle was true as it was trite. “The king wishes you to know how pleased he is that you’ve accepted this position.” 

“It was an honor I couldn’t refuse.” Padraig gave a stiff bow. He wasn’t in his family’s holdings or among the army any longer where he could be a black sheep. He was about to the thrust into a world of courtly intrigue as training master where he would at least be required to display more genteel manners than was customary with him. 

“His Majesty bids you welcome,” continued Sir Gareth as he led Padraig up a sweeping marble staircase. “He hopes that you’ll agree to dine with him tomorrow evening to discuss any modifications you’d like to make to the training regimen. He believes that should be sufficient time for you to review the notes Lord Wyldon addressed to you in the office that will now be yours. I trust you’ll find them most thorough.” 

“No doubt I will.” Padraig resigned himself to the wearying prospect of squinting at Lord Wyldon’s comprehensive records until daybreak when he would begin whipping into shape the pages who had surely become lax in their discipline after Lord Wyldon’s retirement. Thinking of the changes he had decided on his ride south from his family’s duchy that he would implement, he added, “I plan to take the pages on more camping trips to the north and the south. In the north, they’ll master mountain climbing, fishing, and trapping, while in the Great Southern Desert, they’ll learn about its medicines, foods, and dangers.” 

“The merits of such survival training are plain.” Sir Gareth nodded as they arrived at the top step and turned down a hallway toward the pages’ wing. “His Majesty will be eager to hear more details tomorrow.” 

Silence fell between them, and Padraig was acutely and uncomfortably aware of how ill-adapted his rustic demeanor was to the elaborate courtesies of court. As they climbed up another flight of stairs that opened onto the pages’ wing, Sir Gareth remarked, dry as desert sand flown into eyes, “I might be the only person in the palace more excited to see you than the king. The pages were a horror to control. I look forward to returning to the struggle of governing a country, which seems simple in comparison to managing the monsters in the pages’ wing.” 

It was just like a Naxen to inject an implication that they had more exalted business affairs to attend to than you did even while they were ostensibly praising you, Padraig observed with an internal snort. The thought of Naxens made him remember a thick letter he had tucked into the riding satchel still slung over his shoulder. 

“Before we part, I should give you this.” Padraig retrieved the envelope from his satchel and handed it to Sir Gareth. “Your daughter sends her regards to you and your lady wife.” 

Lady Zenoby, spending her first winter in the north after marrying Padraig’s nephew Beltair last May, had written an epistle that spanned many pages to her mother and father the instant she had discovered that Padraig was venturing south through the snows to the palace. Couriers deemed the northern roads impassable during the long northern winter, and scrying mages were only to be used for urgent Crown business so Lady Zenoby must have crammed months’ worth of correspondence into the letter she had entrusted to Padraig. 

“I thank you for the letter and for assuming the post of training master.” Sir Gareth was the type of man who clearly felt the overwhelming desire to read any document that crossed his path for Padraig could see he was itching to take his leave. Nodding down the corridor as they stepped onto the landing, he explained briskly, “Your office is at the end of the hallway. I didn’t bother moving any of my belongings in there so you should find it empty and ready for you to decorate as you will.” 

Sir Gareth vanished with a bow before Padraig had to waste any breath on a respectful reply to this final direction. Bracing himself to wade through the pile of notes the ever-precise Lord Wyldon had left him to study, Padraig began to make his way down the corridor. 

Halfway along, the hallway intersected with another, and a gaggle of boys, feet pounding like a stampede of wild Bazhir horses, ran around the corner, the nightclothes fanning behind them in a testament to the fact that they should have been in their beds rather than creating havoc. 

His jaw tightening as he shot out his hand to snag an errant page at the head of the pack who seemed to be ringleader of this gang of troublemakers, Padraig shook his head at the idea that when the cat was away, the mice danced on the table. Determined to prove to these misbehaving pages that the cat was back and poised to pounce on them if they put so much as a toe out of line, he announced in a tone frigid as the ice covering the crags of his home fief, “I’m Lord Padraig haMinch, your new training master. I won’t ask for your names and we’ll pretend this misadventure never happened if you march your backsides back to your beds at once. Be warned that if I ever catch you wandering the hallway after curfew, I’ll know your names and assign you a week’s worth of labor in the armory.” 

To Padraig’s grim satisfaction, this threat was apparently so menacing that every page but the one in his iron grip bolted for their bedrooms. As the flock of boys fled like startled geese, slamming their doors behind them as if to barricade themselves from Padraig’s punishment, Padraig looked at the lad trapped by his firm hand. 

Beneath Padraig’s scrutiny, the boy battled valiantly but vainly to conceal a wince because there was a reason Padraig had earned the epithet Stone Fist from the men he commanded in the army. Padraig frowned at the sight of Queen Thayet’s fierce hazel eyes under untamable Conte black locks. 

“Prince Liam.” Padraig paused for effect as he recalled everything he had ever heard about the second son of King Jonathan and Queen Thayet. Prince Liam, it was said, was the most skilled in weapons of the three brothers but the most careless in his lessons and the least polished in his manners. 

Prince Liam immediately demonstrated the veracity of this last rumor by lifting his chin obstinately. “I thought you weren’t asking names, sir.” 

“Your cheek has earned you an extra hour of etiquette, Your Highness.” Padraig’s swift sentence subdued the defiant prince, but he went on curtly, “I don’t need to ask your name. It is known to all and is what allows you to lead your peers. Lead them well, not off a cliff to trouble.” 

“Yes, my lord.” Prince Liam’s sheepish smile suggested that he was attempting to deploy the classic Conte charm. “We were only practicing sneaking around so we’d be ready for a covert mission to Scanra once war is declared. There’s no question we’re completely prepared and embracing the impending war here in the pages’ wing.” 

“It’ll be a long time yet before you’re prepared for war.” Padraig couldn’t remember a time when he had been so idealistically eager to race onto the battlefield. Maybe he had never been such an innocent. “Go to bed now, Your Highness, before I add to your punishment.” 

Prince Liam—finally cowed to quiet—nodded and beat a hasty retreat to his bedroom when Padraig released him. 

Padraig resumed his journey down the hallway and scowled when he spotted the telltale glow of a candle burning in a third-year’s room. Glancing at the slate hanging from the door to identify the culprit, he read: Jasson’s lair—keep out. Beside this uninviting script was the helpful illustration of a hapless trespasser attacked by the youngest prince’s Gift. 

Risking magical assault, Padraig flung open the door to reveal Prince Jasson curled in his blankets, nose buried in a book. 

“You’re the new training master, Lord Padraig haMinch.” Prince Jasson stared at Padraig with a gaze green as clover.

“Yes, and your candles should have been out hours ago, Your Highness.” Padraig snatched the tome from between Prince Jasson’s unresisting fingers and realized as he stowed it on the bookshelf that it was a weighty volume on the Bazhir Wars penned by Lord Martin of Meron whose fief comprised the southern desert. “If I catch you reading after curfew again, I’ll confiscate the book you’re reading.” 

“I wanted to learn about the Bazhir Wars, my lord.” Prince Jasson was remarkably unabashed by Padraig’s terse admonishment. “I heard you fought in them for years. Will you share stories of you desert adventures with us?” 

“Perhaps I will if you behave.” Padraig wasn’t sure he would want to share his desert adventures with the pages. He definitely didn’t want to talk about how the enemy he had marched out to fight had proved so similar to him, the stubborn Bazhir independence and unbreakable Bazhir pride reminding him of his own haMinchi clans so much that he had made faithful friends among the Bazhir. Mentioning the wife and two children he had among the Bazhir and lost to an outbreak of pox would be even more unfathomable. He masked his uncertainty by jabbing a sharp finger at Prince Jasson’s blazing candle. “That means candles out after curfew, Prince Jasson.” 

“Yes, sir.” Prince Jasson puffed out his face and blew out the candle. “I’ll be compliant as a Conte can be.” 

Far from reassured by this vow, Padraig grunted, spun on his heel, and left the room without another word, shutting Prince Jasson’s door behind him. As he set off down the corridor to the office he had inherited from Lord Wyldon, he thought with a wry twist of his mouth that he would have to tell King Jonathan tomorrow that he had met his two sons among the pages and their vibrant personalities had left an undeniable impression on him in true Conte fashion.


End file.
